Second Time Around
by Little Lost Lady
Summary: After having lived through Four Shinobi Wars already and been one of the last two survivors, Satomi was prepared to make the most out of a Space-Time Seal which thrust her back into her younger self. This time around, she would stop all of the madness before it even began, and she would live her life to the fullest extent. Now she just needs to figure out how to do it. Femslash.
1. Prologue

Author Note: Hello all, just a short note before you continue to read. This is my first story, so bear with me! This story has the potential for violence, sexual acts, explicit language, and any number of 'adult only' content- so please read responsibly. If I do end up with romance in this fic, it will be LGBTQ friendly (femslash as the main focus most likely)- if you are not a fan, no hating- just don't read it. I would love any comments, questions, or other tidbits if you have any. I am hoping to make this a lengthy fic, but it will probably take me a LONG time. I do not own Naruto or any other cool anime (unfortunately). Read at your own risk ;) Hope you enjoy!

The sound of harsh breathing filled the air of the dark cave which Satomi inhabited. Sweat dripped down her face in long streaming beads, traveling down her face and neck to soak into her tattered and torn uniform. She hardly noticed as her sweat made her skin stick to her body uncomfortably, as she focused solely on a sealing array on the large scroll she had on the ground.

She meticulously draws her brush over the paper, swift but calculating every movement carefully and with the surety only a master in the art could have, and with a desperate focus only someone under threat of death could accomplish. The cave was silent, but she could hear the voices of her comrades encouraging her, yelling out in their last struggle for survival, crying in defeat, and screaming in pain. Satomi blinked rapidly at the onslaught of tears suddenly obscuring her vision, she had no time to spare for tears, they only delayed her progress on the seal.

Just as she wiped her face and continued another sequence of the seal, a man's voice filled the empty space in the air. "Satomi! You must hurry, one of Naruto's clones just dispersed. She's found our location!"

"Tsk-!" Satomi clicked her tongue in distress and again focused all her efforts into the sealing array before her. It was their last hope after all. A way to escape and recuperate, to hopefully develop a better plan and finally defeat the goddess Kaguya.

Satomi only managed another thirty minutes of work before Obito and Naruto rushed in to the cave. In the back of her mind Satomi felt a bit of amusement at the odd pairing, but it diminished as soon as it came. Two enemies coming together to fight a monster which defies all possibilities. They really got themselves into a huge mess.

"She's here!" Naruto yelled, interrupting Satomi's thought process. With a snap and crack of her stiff back, she stood up, scooping up the scroll as she did.

"I'm not yet done. I still have the final two layers to add to the array. The seal is incredibly complex, the chance of it succeeding are incredibly low as well. It may do as intended and send us to a dimension where we can heal and come up with a better plan, or it may not work at all, making this a wasted effort, or it could send us to a place where there is not sufficient resources for our survival- like the sun! - it may even just tear us all apart from the time-space rift it will undoubtedly create!"

Satomi shouted the last sentence, the tears from before finally freely flowing from her eyes. For a moment she could only imagine all her friends and loved ones that she lost from this war. The Fourth Great Shinobi War, started by one of the men in front of her, and how everything went to crap after everyone who had died was brought back to life. AND STARTED TO FIGHT THEM. It was so hard to kill the people who she admired, loved, and felt respect for. Towards the end of all the fighting, after their ranks had dwindled down to less than a hundred, they had come up with this plan.

Stealing the idea of dimensions from the very creature who killed them all so easily, they devised a plan to create a way to jump to another dimension, to hopefully escape and heal and come up with a way of attack that would kill the 'goddess'. Using Satomi's sealing skills, Obito's Sharingan and Kamui ability, and Naruto's ability to hold off the goddess while they work together on the seal. Originally, they had a little under a hundred members all working together to create this seal, but after only two months of running and hiding and fighting to their last breath, it came down to these three shinobi. How they would defeat Kaguya, Satomi had no clue, she was entirely focused on finding a method of escape, so that they could think of that part of the plan later.

"Satomi!" again, the elder shinobi was snapped from her thoughts as Obito stepped forward and shook her shoulders lightly. "We need to get out of here, this is our last shot. Naruto is going to distract her for as long as he can, to give us an opportunity to escape and finish the seal. Can you do this?"

Satomi felt her gaze harden, she turned her tired green eyes to the young man, who she remembered as just a young academy hopeful. Sprouting off his dream of becoming Hokage to all who could hear, pulling an insane amount of pranks and always with a smile on his face. The man before her now reminded her so much of his father, blue eyes sharp but hardened with experience, the determined expression reflected that of his mother. The memories of the former Hokage and his wife only caused Satomi to experience another pang of sadness. Yet more people who have died in the vain hope for a peaceful future.

Satomi and Naruto held each other's gaze for many moments. The elder woman, nearing the age of 55, felt an odd calm overcome her as she took in his determined expression. The young man, only 17 years of age yet already having experienced the death of all he held dear, still had hope that they would be able to pull through. She had never met anyone who embodied the will of fire so revered in Konoha as was in that young man. Hardening her own resolve, she turned to Obito and said.

"Let's go, we will finish this, and finally find a way to end this hell we are living in." The three of them stood silent for a moment, gathering up their strength before their final push which would determine their fate.

Their plan, if one could call it that, was for Naruto to confront Kaguya and stall for time. In the meantime, Satomi would finish the seal configuration and Obito would stay with her, acting as a guard and last resort if Naruto fails and Kaguya reaches the duo. Satomi estimated she needed three more hours of work, the layering process was quite complex after all, and hoped that Naruto would be able to buy them the time they needed. With one last look towards one another, they split into two groups, Naruto by himself and Obito and Satomi in the opposite direction.

Satomi and Obito did not go far, unwilling to sacrifice too much time running when there was so much work to do still. They gave up all pretenses of hiding now, Satomi set up her equipment right in the middle of a long since used path. She needed the large flat area for her work. Obito took up point in a tree not far away, acting as sentry. She worked as fast as she thought safe, swiping across yards of scroll paper and even the ground where the seal spilled out. If her process was interrupted now there was no undoing the work or rolling it back up and running. It really was now or never- the final moment of truth. If she could complete this array they would have a chance. If not, they were as good as dead.

The time went by so swiftly, Satomi hardly even noticed as the sun began to descend into the earth. The sky turned a dark orange, with stripes of pink and yellow visible, and the light blue of the sky turning darker until it looked almost purple. The evening was cool, there were no clouds in the sky, no looming storm to signify the intensity of the situation. It was utterly peaceful. Until it wasn't.

With a deafening BOOM! something crashed into the earth not far away from Obito and Satomi's location. Heart pounding in her ears enough to overcome the sounds of trees falling and crashing into the earth, she looked up to Obito who had his Sharingan blazing.

"It was Naruto… He's not looking good… he has some of Zetsu on him. Kaguya seems to be playing with him, as Zetsu is very slowly covering him." Satomi's teeth clenched painfully and frustrated tears threatened to spill from her eyes. She looked to her array, before looking towards her companion.

"I-I'm almost finished. I just need maybe thirty more minutes. Can you… can you help him without dying? Your Sharingan is needed for this seal to work. If we want this to succeed, you need to come back, alive and able to perform the Kamui." Another loud noise filled the air, this time a sharp crack sound that could only be a body smashing against a solid surface. They both flinched harshly, turning towards where the sound came from, Obito spoke.

"There is no longer any other option, I have to go, and I have to come back." Obito looked to Satomi again, looking with some mixture of remorse and determination in his eyes. "I am sorry for all that my selfishness has put us all through, if I had known…" He let out a sigh, regret contorting his face and eyes clouding over momentarily.

"The same could be said of all of us, Obito. You were not the only one who made mistakes, cost people lives and potential happiness. Your actions may have caused this mess, but it was also the inaction of people like me who contributed to it." Satomi is suddenly taken back years in the past, where she could have helped a young boy struggling to survive but instead chose to ignore the problem since it was not her own.

"Now, let's put our all into this last effort. We can play the pity game after this bitch is gone to Kami and out of our lives." Satomi snarled the last sentence, and Obito smirked at the older woman's words.

"Now that, is a plan I can get behind." Obito jumped down hard, all thoughts of stealth gone now that we were on our last leg. "I will be back soon, you better keep up your end of the plan!"

Satomi barely took the time to acknowledge his last words before she was once again rushing through the seal matrix. Her body was quivering, the ground shook with the powerful battle going on not too far away, she could practically taste the chakra in the air from the battle. Before long, she made one last swipe of the seal, just in time to hear the sound of laughter filling the air.

Satomi's head snapped up, but she did not see anyone nearby. Still, that feminine manic laugh could not be mistaken. Kaguya. Satomi's eyes darted back and forth, her body tensed and she prepared for the worst as her ears caught the sound of someone rushing towards her. With hardly a second to prepare herself, someone was suddenly in front of her. She was barely able to stop herself from flinging her readied kunai when she realized it was Obito standing in front of her.

He was panting heavily, blood covering his clothes, his already crippled arm an even more mangled mess of flesh and bone. Half of his hair was gone due to a Fire Jutsu, his legs were shaking with the effort of even standing, and his chakra was dangerously low. Satomi rushed to his aid, her palm glowing the familiar green of medical chakra. She couldn't do much about his injuries now, but she could infuse some of her chakra into him, to at least alleviate that concern. He was mumbling something, but Satomi paid no mind to that and continued the transfer until she felt he had a safe amount in his system.

"The array is finished now, we just need to stand in the middle. I will provide the chakra to fuel the Jutsu, you just need to provide the direction with your eye." She paused a moment, before taking his arm and helping him into the sealing array. "Is Naruto…?" she let her question trail off, unwilling to complete the sentence in fear that it was true.

A pained look overcame Obito's face, and Satomi felt an incredible twist in her gut. There were no more words said between the two as she helped him into the sealing array and stood next to him. She knelt and placed her hands over the area where she needed to channel her chakra to fuel the Jutsu. Looking up, she noticed that Obito's eyes were filled with a great intensity as his Sharingan blazed with power of his will.

"Ready?" Obito asked, already channeling his own chakra for the Justu.

"As I can be." Satomi replied softly, surging her chakra forward and into the seal. The ink around them began to glow, slowly gaining more intensity and eventually its brightness blinded the duo.

Just as Obito finally called out his Jutsu, a loud voice could be heard nearby.

"Space-Time Sealing Technique: Kamui! Activate!" There was one more big pulse of light, before the two of them were dragged into a dark portal which opened in the seal rather than in Obito's eye. Satomi felt her chakra rapidly draining from her body, and she could barely feel Obito's presence next to her. Weakly, she reached out with one hand, trying to grab her only allies hand for support. He seemed to have had the same idea, and their fingers just barely brushed one another before she was overcome with pain from her chakra getting forcibly taken from her coils. Satomi began to fall forward, too weak to support herself anymore, when suddenly light filled her vision again.

Her brain was barely able to register a sudden explosion of colors before she lost consciousness due to pain and exhaustion.


	2. Chapter 1

Author Note: Sorry it's taken me so long, I'm a grad student so basically I don't have a lot of free time. Anyway, I added the rest of this chapter to it 11/12/2017. Also, sorry for any grammar or other errors- I didn't have much time to edit and I wanted to get this up for everyone. I Thanks, hope you enjoy! -Little Lost Lady.

When Satomi became aware of her body and surroundings again, she was a mess of emotions. All her body seemed able to do was cry (sob really), which was something she hadn't done since she was a Chunin and the team she had been a Genin with all died shortly after one another due to the Second Shinobi War. With her emotions raging out of control, she could barely register how her body was smaller, weaker, and had a lot less grace than a woman of 55 who had spent her entire life dedicated to stealth and combat should have been. She was embarrassed to admit how the days passed in repetitive cycles of numbness, crying, and with an inability to control her own body functions. So caught up was she in her emotional rollercoaster, she only able to recognize the situation she was in when nearly two weeks had already passed.

She had already been near to tears at the moment of her realization, which was triggered by the entrance of an elderly woman whom was vaguely familiar to her. The woman's hair was in a severe looking bun, and her grey locks were tightly kept under control. Her face was wrinkled in a way that signified she had led a stressful life, though she still showed signs of laughter as well. Her eyes, while sunken in and hooded in a way that indicated a life of strife also had the signature crows feet of a life full of laughter. It wasn't the aged skin that caught her attention most though, she was captivated by the color. They were the same startling green that she herself wore on her face and saw every time she saw her reflection. The more she looked at the woman, the more she noticed similarities between their looks.

The same slightly large nose, her hair- while having lost the color she had been born with- was made of the same thick and heavy strands Satomi herself was intimately familiar with. She appeared tall, her shoulders only stooping slightly as age betrayed her body and forced her down with gravity, just as Satomi remembered body had threatened to do as she herself aged. Of course, the biggest and most obvious of giveaways was the animal summons of a Crow and a Bear which followed the woman around.

"O-obaa-san?" Satomi stuttered in disbelief, her tears all but forgotten in her shock- though they ran in vicious streams down her face.

The woman's green eyes, unable to see very far in front of her but still with a sharp intelligence glinting behind them, snapped into Satomi's direction. "Satomi! What's wrong dear? Are you hungry? Thirsty? What can your Obaa-chan do to help?"

The woman's fussing proved too much for Satomi, and she was suddenly wracked by loud horrible sobs. Snot dripped down her face, her skin felt red and blotchy, her eyes itchy, and her heart ached painfully. The woman who, to Satomi, had been dead for decades coddled her granddaughter into her breast. Lightly running her hand over her hair and gripping her gently with the other. Satomi desperately grasped onto her grandmother's kimono, carelessly getting her snot, tears, and drool onto the fabric.

As her grandmother, the only relative she could ever remember from her life, shushed and comforted Satomi, she came to a realization. She was suddenly aware of her small body, weakened muscles, and overall clumsy physique. Connecting all the dots was easy with all the evidence in front of her. Somehow, she was a child again, back in her childhood home with her grandmother still alive. As the realization sunk in, she only sobbed harder, this time full of relief, and for the first time in years, hope.

~Line Break~

Satomi Murakami had an extremely hard time readjusting to her new (or is it old?) body. She was constantly tripping over her own feet, dropping things, and was incredibly frustrated at her lack of dexterity in her fingers. Writing the simplest of words was an enormous pain and time-consuming task, for a (previous?) master in Fuuinjutsu this fact was probably at the pinnacle of her anger towards her own body.

Those were only the physical limitations related to repossessing her old body, there were mental and emotional ones as well. Despite the fact she had the mentality of a fully-grown woman (elderly would be an appropriate term here) she still had the body of a two year old. She was ashamed to admit the number of tantrums, pouting, sudden bouts of anger, sadness, excitement, happiness, and all other emotions that existed. Waking up from a nightmare turned into huge crying fits and uncontrollable hysterics. Going outside and playing (and yes, she did play) with other children resulted in manic laughter and giggling and absolute chaos. She felt terrible for her poor grandmother, the elderly woman, clearly at the end of her days and only holding on for her recently orphaned and only remaining blood relative, had her hands full with a little girl who considered herself a grown woman.

Not only were her emotions all over the place, but she found she no longer had the focus and mental capacity she had prided herself for in her (first?) life. One moment she was absorbed in practicing her writing, the next she found herself climbing the tallest tree in their families back yard with her grandmother yelling after her, ink staining her clothes, face, and hands and laughter uncontrollably bubbling from her chest. However hard she tries to combat her bodies' natural reactions to things, she only seems to make it worse and explode in repressed energy.

After an incident involving two Jonin and their Genin teams being covered in ink and feathers chasing after her in the village forest by the training grounds, she decided that she may as well just let her body do its own thing and not try and force her adult reactions onto her child body. Though there were many embarrassing moments that only an adult in a child's body could experience, she did immensely enjoy her second chance at life. The only thing she absolutely refused to back down on, was her ninja training.

Her grandmother was fairly taken aback by Satomi's sudden change in attitude towards her training. Satomi would admit that she was an unmotivated and lazy individual in her last life, but this time, after experiencing the death of the world around her, she found a determination to succeed that she had never felt in her last life. Satomi threw herself into her clan teachings, the one thing in her past life that she had been unable to learn from another person as her entire family died when she was a young child. Which brought her to her current situation, sitting in the living room of her family's home learning of her clan's history from her grandmother.

"Satomi-kun," Her grandmother's voice broke Satomi's focus on her writing, and the two year old (Almost three!) turned to her only living relative with curiosity. "Your gramdma is not long for this world, soon I will be joining your parents in Kami-sama's embrace. But, I still have much to teach you, as the last living member of the Murakami clan. So you may someday pass this knowledge onto your own children, if you so choose to have any."

At the sudden talk of her imminent death, Satomi's eyes unwillingly filled with tears. She was a little taken aback by the abrupt conversation and her grandmother's openness about her declining health. However, Satomi was not surprised by the revelation of such decline in health. She could see that as every day passed, her grandmother grew weaker, her eyes dimmer, experienced a lack of appetite, and was now hardly able to get up to use the restroom. At the age of 60 years old, her Shio Murakami had lived a surprisingly long life in a world filled with death.

Satomi quickly realized the seriousness of this conversation and hurriedly dried her wet eyes. She turned to fully face her grandmother, and focused hard on her next words.

"I am glad you have shown such an interest in my teachings lately, Satomi, and I believe you are ready to learn of our clan techniques. Follow me, I will teach you what the Murakami Clan is known for." Slowly, her grandmother stood up, Satomi could hear her bones and joints creaking and cracking from her place on the other side of the room.

As her grandma walked, Satomi scrambled to follow her. They were going into the west side of the house, where they had the studies and bedrooms located. Satomi immediately recognized the route from her past life, and felt a bubble of excitement rise from within her. She dutifully followed her grandmother, keeping an eye on her gait and trying to contain her excitement. Finally, they reached the bathroom that was located between the master bedroom and what would have been the eldest child's bedroom- and as an only child was her current bedroom.

Her grandmother paused before the door, turning towards her granddaughter with a small smile. Satomi watched as she pulled out a well-kept kunai, and lightly pressed until a small opening and welling of blood appeared on her finger. Slowly, demonstrating the appropriate seals to her granddaughter, Satomi watched as, with her bloody finger still pressed to the handle, she ran through a sequence of seven seals with her other hand.

There was no dramatic light or noise to signify any difference in the door or what the Jutsu did, however, when her grandmother opened what was seemingly the bathroom door, it opened to an entirely different room. Grandmother went on to explain to Satomi that the blood and hand seals activated a storage-type seal which replaced the room with the family storage where heirlooms and sensitive family secrets are kept. Satomi could barely hear the explanation between the rushing of blood through her ears and her own awes and wonderings of amazement at the sight.

The room was large and rectangular, on every wall were shelves of books and scrolls, and there were additional shelving unites lined in several rows in the middle of the room. There was just enough room for an individual to walk through the rows, but not a lot of space available for more than that. At the far end, barely visible from their spot at the entrance, Satomi knew the weapon cache was kept. The Murakami clan had a special bond with their weapons, and as such their weapon selection was vast and full of variety. Satomi was practically vibrating with energy, and absolutely thrumming with the need to search for the weapons she had been so familiar with in her past life.

Before Satomi could rush off and explore the room, her grandmother placed a hand on her shoulder and spoke. "Satomi, this is the treasure of the Murakami family, our clan's past, present, and future are all located in this room. This room is the legacy of all Murakami before you. I will be instructing you in all different areas of this legacy with the limited time we have together. The first lesson is this," Satomi could only gap in surprise as her grandmother- a now frail old thing- lifted what had to be the biggest tomb in the entire room and set it down in front of her with a loud "BANG". "This is the written history of our clan, it includes the birth and death of every member, stories of our formation and development into a clan of Konoha, allies and enemies, and most importantly… clan politics. Now, before I allow you to access any other document or artifact in this room, you must read and understand these records. Do you understand me, Satomi?"

Satomi could only gap at her grandmother, she expected her to do what now? With how her mind was already drifting from the conversation, Satomi could only predict that this would be a long and boring process. Dimly, Satomi nodded in acceptance of her grandmother's request, looking longingly into the room- where she could just see the glint of a polished to perfection weapon- and then her grandmother led her out of the room. Dragging her reluctant charge all the way.

LINE BREAK- IMAGINE THERE IS A LINE

The next few months of Satomi's life were absolutely consumed by that tomb- and it definitely was a tomb. It dated back generations of Murakami- so far that the language started to change and Satomi had to consult a translation text in order to understand it. The process was as she had predicted, long and boring, however- she learned much about her clan that she had been ignorant to in her previous life. Things that had absolutely no meaning for her right now (one of her ancestors treated the records basically like a diary and there were many intimate details of his life). Other things were actually very interesting and more relevant- like how her family was frequently a mediator between many of the other clans in Konoha and had allegiances with pretty much every minor and major clan in the vicinity. That was something she could really use this time around.

Thankfully her grandmother did allow her back into the 'super-secret clan storage of absolute secrecy', so her life wasn't entirely boring- just mostly. Her grandmother had allowed Satomi to take one item from the room to use as she pleased after Satomi had gotten through the language barrier and read through the more ancient sections of the tomb of despair (she was calling it that in her mind. It seemed fitting for all the dread she felt when reading it). Satomi debated on what item to take for several long hours, before finally her childish attention span forced her hand and she picked up a book containing all beginner level lessons a Murakami must learn before developing their signature clan techniques.

Her grandmother was only too happy to instruct Satomi in those lessons- and though the book was familiar from her past life, she was grateful for her grandmother's guidance. In the past/future (still so confusing) she had learned her clan techniques all the hard way and was only able to master them years after she became Chunin. In her past life she had focused more on the Fuuinjutsu aspect of her clan rather than the very versatile fighting style- so it was interesting to now be focusing so hard on the physical aspects of her clan style of combat.

During the first lesson from her grandmother, they had gone over the specialties that made the Murakami clan stand out from others. She and her grandmother sat on the deck outside, Satomi on the floor stretching and her grandmother in a rocking chair underneath the awning of their porch, staying out of the sun but enjoying the fresh air. The elder Murakami had seen enormous growth in her granddaughter over the last few months, and after hours of teaching and observing, and considering her own declining health, she felt it was time for one of the most important lessons for a child in the Murakami clan.

"Now Satomi, I am sure you remember seeing Kenji and Mokoto around the house and in the area, but I would like to introduce you to my summons." The elderly woman crooned, she was eager to teach her young granddaughter about their clan, though from how tired her body constantly was now-a-days she knew she didn't have much longer left to pass on clan techniques.

Satomi watched in rapt attention as her grandmother pulled out a deadly looking battle fan, and a simple yet dangerous tanto from beside her. The now young girl could only look on in amazement as her elderly grandmother channeled a small portion of her chakra into the weapons, and they transformed into animals. A beautiful looking crow sat perched on the arm of the rocking chair, its intelligent eyes gazing at Satomi with clinical curiosity. Not far away, in the yard, a medium sized brown bear sat calmly, he was scarred across his body, but his brown eyes betrayed none of the battle-hardened warrior he obviously was.

Pointing to the crow, her grandmother introduced her summons. "This is Motoko, she is my spirit summon that is connected to my battle fan. And over there in the yard is Kenji, he was my first companion and is attached to the tanto I showed you. I mastered these weapons just before my prime, and after using our clan's techniques to connect a spirit summon to both weapons I was able to master both of their elements. Kenji is closely aligned to Earth, while Motoko is aligned to Wind."

Satomi spent the next several minutes oohing and awing over the spirit animals and bombarding them and her grandmother with questions. Can I pet you being the first (hey, she's barely out of her toddler stage, she felt an uncontrollable urge to pet the animals and dang it if she didn't try!). Satomi herself- as the old war hardened veteran- knew of spirit summons from her clan from her previous life, but she was taken aback still at seeing someone else's summons. She had only ever met her own, as the technique to bind a spirit animal was quite extensive and time consuming. As her grandmother was currently explaining- Satomi was only partially listening, she was too absorbed with petting Kenji. The bear seemed about twenty times as big as he actually was compared to her now small stature, but he was very gentle with the young girl and Satomi was fascinated by his various scars.

After the initial oohs and ahs her grandmother directed Satomi to turn her attention towards her rather than the spirit summons. "Now Satomi, the process of gaining your spirit summons is long and hard. Not only must you master the weapon with which you bind the summons, you must also have a perfect balance of all chakra types, including Yin and Yang. Murakami are born with the unique ability to master all chakra natures, due to the fact that we do not have any inclination towards one specific nature as is more widely seen. This is key to our techniques because it means we can master all the natures, compared to someone with an inclination towards one nature that would have a difficult time mastering its opposite."

"After mastering the weapon of choice, then begins the process of applying the seals onto the weapon- a very delicate process and with even one mistake a new weapon must be used- this is a large reason why many Murakami become either experts or masters in Fuuinjutsu. Finally, one must bind their chakra and a spirit animal into the weapon with a special ritual which I will teach you once you have gained more progress. Many of our clan stop at this final stage of binding the animal to them, but to fully master the most infamous of our techniques, you must finally master the element that the spirit animal aligns with and that will complete your bond as summon and summoner."

"Now, to begin with I will be teaching you a few different meditation techniques to better balance your chakras, we will also run through many different chakra control exercises, more of the beginning to adept kata forms of our clan, and of course we will be continuing your fuuinjutsu lessons…" Satomi's mind wandered as her grandmother continued to explain how the next few months would go for the two of them. She was just too excited to really concentrate and by now she had learned to just let her thoughts drift rather than try and force herself to focus. She had all of her new life to master these techniques and learn about her previously extinct clan.

The next several months passed in a blur to Satomi, every day was a routine of physical exercise, meditation, fuuinjutsu, reading all different texts from her families 'vault', and of course chakra control exercises. Getting started on chakra control at a younger age has great benefits for when kids become adults, as they have larger reserves and better control, however for Satomi, the strain on her body mentally and physically from those exercises was exhausting. Plus, her grandmother was just cruel. Not only was the traditional three exercises (leaf, tree, and water) but so were the exercises for each different nature, and ones specific for Yin and Yang chakra as well. The amount of cuts, burns, bruises, scrapes, scratches, bumps, and overall soreness she felt was truly symbolic of how sadistic her grandmother could be. And not to mention the 'games' her grandmother made up of "have the spirit summons chase Satomi until she loses consciousness", "see how well Satomi can avoid pointy objects", "use genjutsu to scare Satomi until she pees herself", and more.

Satomi was just glad the time passed so quickly for her, and though the teachings became harder and harder, she found her body was more able to handle the strain with each passing day. She hardly noticed her grandmothers declining health with all of the effort she put in to bettering her own skills. Every day that passed Satomi's grandmother needed more help walking, she ate less, drank less, slept less, her mood became more somber, her hair thinner, and her skin lost its color and left deep dark purple marks underneath her eyes. So absorbed in in her newfound connection with her clan's traditions and teachings, she was utterly shocked on a normal if slightly chilly morning just shy of a year since repossessing her 3 year old body. Satomi went to wake her grandmother for their usual morning taijutsu practice, and found her grandmother laying peacefully, as if in sleep, but her cold body and lack of breath betrayed the tranquil look. Two days later, Satomi wore black at her grandmothers funeral, and cried openly as she laid her bonded weapons down in the casket. The contract with her summons had ended with her death, but the Murakami honored the bond with their summons by carrying their weapons, even in death.


End file.
